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John Locke, Excerpt, Second Treatise on Government (1689)

CHAP. V.
Of Property.

2024-2025

1) What is Locke saying to his fellow English subjects about America?

2) What does Locke’s text tell us about connections between property and
democracy?
3) Why do Americans interpret this as a foundational text of US
democracy?
4) What are the reasons that property accumulation must first be limited,
to Locke, and how does he propose to go beyond those limits?

Sec. 26. God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make
use of it to the best advantage of life, and convenience. The earth, and all that is therein, is given
to men for the support and comfort of their being. And tho' all the fruits it naturally produces, and
beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of
nature; and no body has originally a private dominion, exclusive of the rest of mankind, in any of
them, as they are thus in their natural state: yet being given for the use of men, there must of
necessity be a means to appropriate them some way or other, before they can be of any use, or at
all beneficial to any particular man. The fruit, or venison, which nourishes the wild Indian, who
knows no enclosure, and is still a tenant in common, must be his, and so his, i.e. a part of him, that
another can no longer have any right to it, before it can do him any good for the support of his
life.
Sec. 27. Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a
property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and
the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state
that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something
that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common
state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the
common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no
man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as
good, left in common for others.
Sec. 28. He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered
from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. No body can deny but the
nourishment is his. {…) The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they
were in, hath fixed my property in them.
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Sec. 29. By making an explicit consent of every commoner, necessary to any one's appropriating
to himself any part of what is given in common, children or servants could not cut the meat, which
their father or master had provided for them in common, without assigning to every one his
peculiar part. Though the water running in the fountain be every one's, yet who can doubt, but that
in the pitcher is his only who drew it out? His labour hath taken it out of the hands of nature,
where it was common, and belonged equally to all her children, and hath thereby appropriated it
to himself.
Sec. 30. Thus this law of reason makes the deer that Indian's who hath killed it; it is allowed to be
his goods, who hath bestowed his labour upon it, though before it was the common right of every
one. And amongst those who are counted the civilized part of mankind, who have made and
multiplied positive laws to determine property, this original law of nature, for the beginning of
property, in what was before common, still takes place; and by virtue thereof, what fish any one
catches in the ocean, that great and still remaining common of mankind; or what ambergrise any
one takes up here, is by the labour that removes it out of that common state nature left it in, made
his property, who takes that pains about it. And even amongst us, the hare that any one is hunting,
is thought his who pursues her during the chase: for being a beast that is still looked upon as
common, and no man's private possession; whoever has employed so much labour about any of
that kind, as to find and pursue her, has thereby removed her from the state of nature, wherein she
was common, and hath begun a property.
Sec. 31. It will perhaps be objected to this, that if gathering the acorns, or other fruits of the earth,
&c. makes a right to them, then any one may ingross as much as he will. To which I answer, Not
so. The same law of nature, that does by this means give us property, does also bound that
property too. God has given us all things richly. But how far has he given it us? To enjoy. As
much as any one can make use of to any advantage of life before it spoils, so much he may by his
Tabour fix a property in: whatever is beyond this, is more than his share, and belongs to others.
Nothing was made by God for man to spoil or destroy. And thus, considering the plenty of natural
provisions there was a long time in the world, and the few spenders; and to how small a part of
that provision the industry of one man could extend itself, and ingross it to the prejudice of others;
especially keeping within the bounds, set by reason, of what might serve for his use; there could
be then little room for quarrels or contentions about property so established.
Sec. 32. But the chief matter of property being now not the fruits of the earth, and the beasts that
subsist on it, but the earth itself; as that which takes in and carries with it all the rest; I think it is
plain, that property in that too is acquired as the former. As much land as a man tills, plants,
improves, cultivates, and can use the product of, so much is his property. He by his labour does,
as it were, enclose it from the common. Nor will it invalidate his right, to say every body else has
an equal title to it; and therefore he cannot appropriate, he cannot enclose, without the consent of
all his fellow-commoners, all mankind. God, when he gave the world in common to all mankind,
commanded man also to labour, and the penury of his condition required it of him. God and his
reason commanded him to subdue the earth, i.e. improve it for the benefit of life, and therein lay
out something upon it that was his own, his labour. He that in obedience to this command of God,
subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby annexed to it something that was his property,
which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him.
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Sec. 33. Nor was this appropriation of any parcel of land, by improving it, any prejudice to any
other man, since there was still enough, and as good left; and more than the yet unprovided could
use. So that, in effect, there was never the less left for others because of his enclosure for himself:
for he that leaves as much as another can make use of, does as good as take nothing at all. No
body could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught,
who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst: and the case of land and
water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same.
Sec. 34. God gave the world to men in common; but since he gave it them for their benefit, and
the greatest conveniencies of life they were capable to draw from it, it cannot be supposed he
meant it should always remain common and uncultivated. He gave it to the use of the industrious
and rational, (and labour was to be his title to it;) not to the fancy or covetousness of the
quarrelsome and contentious. He that had as good left for his improvement, as was already taken
up, needed not complain, ought not to meddle with what was already improved by another's
labour: if he did, it is plain he desired the benefit of another's pains, which he had no right to, and
not the ground which God had given him in common with others to labour on, and whereof there
was as good left, as that already possessed, and more than he knew what to do with, or his
industry could reach to.
Sec. 36. The measure of property nature has well set by the extent of men's labour and the
conveniencies of life: no man's labour could subdue, or appropriate all; nor could his enjoyment
consume more than a small part; so that it was impossible for any man, this way, to intrench upon
the right of another, or acquire to himself a property, to the prejudice of his neighbour, who would
still have room for as good, and as large a possession (after the other had taken out his) as before
it was appropriated. This measure did confine every man's possession to a very moderate
proportion, and such as he might appropriate to himself, without injury to any body, in the first
ages of the world, when men were more in danger to be lost, by wandering from their company, in
the then vast wilderness of the earth, than to be straitened for want of room to plant in. And the
same measure may be allowed still without prejudice to any body, as full as the world seems: for
supposing a man, or family, in the state they were at first peopling of the world by the children of
Adam, or Noah; let him plant in some inland, vacant places of America, we shall find that the
possessions he could make himself, upon the measures we have given, would not be very large,
nor, even to this day, prejudice the rest of mankind, or give them reason to complain, or think
themselves injured by this man's incroachment, though the race of men have now spread
themselves to all the corners of the world, and do infinitely exceed the small number was at the
beginning. {…]
Sec. 37. This is certain, that in the beginning, before the desire of having more than man needed
had altered the intrinsic value of things, which depends only on their usefulness to the life of man;
or had agreed, that a little piece of yellow metal, which would keep without wasting or decay,
should be worth a great piece of flesh, or a whole heap of corn; though men had a right to
appropriate, by their labour, each one of himself, as much of the things of nature, as he could use:
yet this could not be much, nor to the prejudice of others, where the same plenty was still left to
those who would use the same industry. To which let me add, that he who appropriates land to
himself by his labour, does not lessen, but increase the common stock of mankind: for the
provisions serving to the support of human life, produced by one acre of enclosed and cultivated
land, are (to speak much within compass) ten times more than those which are yielded by an acre
of land of an equal richness lying waste in common. And therefore he that encloses land, and has
a greater plenty of the conveniencies of life from ten acres, than he could have from an hundred
left to nature, may truly be said to give ninety acres to mankind: for his labour now supplies him
with provisions out of ten acres, which were but the product of an hundred lying in common. I
have here rated the improved land very low, in making its product but as ten to one, when it is
much nearer an hundred to one: for I ask, whether in the wild woods and uncultivated waste of
America, left to nature, without any improvement, tillage or husbandry, a thousand acres yield the
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needy and wretched inhabitants as many conveniencies of life, as ten acres of equally fertile land
do in Devonshire, where they are well cultivated?
{…]
Sec. 41. There cannot be a clearer demonstration of any thing, than several nations of the
Americans are of this, who are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life; whom nature
having furnished as liberally as any other people, with the materials of plenty, i.e. a fruitful soil,
apt to produce in abundance, what might serve for food, raiment, and delight; yet for want of
improving it by labour, have not one hundredth part of the conveniencies we enjoy: and a king of
a large and fruitful territory there, feeds, lodges, and is clad worse than a day-labourer in England.

Sec. 43. An acre of land, that bears here twenty bushels of wheat, and another in America, which,
with the same husbandry, would do the like, are, without doubt, of the same natural intrinsic
value: but yet the benefit mankind receives from the one in a year, is worth 50. and from the other
possibly not worth a penny, if all the profit an Indian received from it were to be valued, and sold
here; at least, I may truly say, not one thousandth. It is labour then which puts the greatest part of
value upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any thing: it is to that we owe the
greatest part of all its useful products; for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre of wheat, is
more worth than the product of an acre of as good land, which lies waste, is all the effect of
labour: for it is not barely the plough-man's pains, the reaper's and thresher's toil, and the baker's
sweat, is to be counted into the bread we eat; the labour of those who broke the oxen, who digged
and wrought the iron and stones, who felled and framed the timber employed about the plough,
mill, oven, or any other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to this corn, from its being
feed to be sown to its being made bread, must all be charged on the account of labour, and
received as an effect of that: nature and the earth furnished only the almost worthless materials, as
in themselves.
{…]
Sec. 48 …Where there is not something, both lasting and scarce, and so valuable to be hoarded
up, there men will not be apt to enlarge their possessions of land, were it never so rich, never so
free for them to take: for I ask, what would a man value ten thousand, or an hundred thousand
acres of excellent land, ready cultivated, and well stocked too with cattle, in the middle of the
inland parts of America, where he had no hopes of commerce with other parts of the world, to
draw money to him by the sale of the product? It would not be worth the enclosing, and we should
see him give up again to the wild common of nature, whatever was more than would supply the
conveniencies of life to be had there for him and his family.

Sec. 49. Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so than that is now; for no
such thing as money was any where known. Find out something that hath the use and value of
money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge his
possessions.